Photoshop graphics flickering and an audio volume bug are also addressed.

Apple has just released a small software update to fix some of the 2013 MacBook Air's teething issues. The MacBook Air (Mid 2013) Software Update 1.0 is intended to fix three minor problems with the new laptop, the most significant of which is an intermittent Wi-Fi connectivity issue that can cause the Air to disconnect randomly from wireless networks. A bug that caused graphics flickering while using Adobe Photoshop has also been patched, as has a bug that caused the computer's "audio volume to fluctuate during video playback."

One notable issue not addressed by the update is a problem with file transfer speeds over 802.11ac networks. As we (and others) reported, the new MacBook Airs aren't as fast as they should be when transferring files over 802.11ac using the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) and Server Message Block (SMB) protocols under OS X. Using a network bandwidth testing tool like iPerf, a different file sharing protocol like FTP, or transferring files in Windows rather than OS X yields transfer speeds that are about as fast as expected, which leads us to believe that the issue is fixable in software. However, according to our testing, today's update doesn't resolve the problem just yet.

Apple is currently testing a larger 10.8.5 update to OS X, as well as the next major release of the operating system (10.9, also known as Mavericks). Hopefully we'll see the 802.11ac speed issue addressed in one or both updates.

30 Reader Comments

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Do you use Apple access points (Airport Express/Extreme)?

Because, although that shouldn't matter, sometimes it seems to matter.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Do you use Apple access points (Airport Express/Extreme)?

Because, although that shouldn't matter, sometimes it seems to matter.

For what it's worth my not at all extensive experience with Apple Airports has not reflected any sort of quality or stability. If the only solution to buggy, unstable wireless on Apple devices is to use buggy, unstable Apple access points and somehow the individual crappiness of both ends cancel each other out; then count me out of that sales pitch.

Curipus how widespread the wifi issue is, there's an awful lot of minimization language used here, and idk about you but when a device randomly kicks off the net I dont really consider it a minor teething issue. (Generally my sentiment would be quite colorful with explacatives). If it only affects a few customers then the sentiment makes sense, a big issue for a couple customers may very well be minor in the grand scheme.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Metal certainly does not help. The metal PowerBook G4 had terrible wifi reception compared to the plastic PowerBook G3 that came before it. They've gotten better with punching the signal through the metal over the years, however: The game you want to play with Apple laptops is "find the plastic" on the case. Every Apple laptop has a plastic strip somewhere on the metal case. Under that plastic is where they put the antenna, so that it has a clear path unblocked by metal. On earlier models it was two little strips of gray plastic high up on the left and right lid edges. On recent models it is the long black plastic piece in the lid hinge connecting the lid to the body. I believe this much larger antenna area not covered by metal is why wifi reception on recent MacBooks is much better than it used to be.

(I am not having any problems with wifi on my Macs or iOS devices, and I use 3 different brands of access points, one Apple and two non-Apple.)

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Do you use Apple access points (Airport Express/Extreme)?

Because, although that shouldn't matter, sometimes it seems to matter.

For what it's worth my not at all extensive experience with Apple Airports has not reflected any sort of quality or stability. If the only solution to buggy, unstable wireless on Apple devices is to use buggy, unstable Apple access points and somehow the individual crappiness of both ends cancel each other out; then count me out of that sales pitch.

I have to assume this is a troll. Having used and set up many Airports over the years, I've found them all to be solid with great range.

For a second there, I thought there was going to flame wars. But yes, Apple has been on the decline in terms of integrity of the products. But it's a hope that they'll keep bouncing back and doing better.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Do you use Apple access points (Airport Express/Extreme)?

Because, although that shouldn't matter, sometimes it seems to matter.

If it was the build of the laptop, then the same problems would be present in Windows. It's Apple's software.

Or in Linux, for that matter!

Trying not to repeat to much what I had already written on the corresponding "Wi-Fi issues" thread in Apple Forums, but I had this "new" iMac 27" mid 2011 which did not even want to connect to my router in the "restore" boot menu (as to download the latest Mountain Lion). I mean, Wi-Fi password accepted, signal strength to max... but the download progress bar wouldn't move.

My older 2008 iMac running Snow Leopard, standing in the very same room, had no problems at all connecting to my FritzBox 3740, WPA2 personal, fixed channel (noise free!) on 2.4 GHz.

Was it a defunct Wi-Fi card? The Bluetooth mouse? Whatever... but get this: now I switched my FritzBox to 5 GHz (otherwise still WPA2 personal, fixed channel, ...) - and now Mountain Lion worked! Switched back to 2.4 GHz... zoink! Nada, niente!

Ok then, grabbed a Live Ubuntu 12.10 DVD, booted my mid 2011 iMac with it... aha, the Bluetooth Magic Mouse doesn't move. Enabled Bluetooth support under Ubuntu, mouse started to move (so now we have the "same Bluetooth conditions" which were sometimes suspected to be the culprit in said Apple Forum thread!)... and Wi-Fi just worked fine! On 2.4 GHz, with exactly the same router settings!

So no hardware issue, it's really a software issue!

In the meantime I bought a cheap TP-Link 7300 router which is able to send on both 2.4 and 5 GHz simultaneously. And Mountain Lion 10.8.3 just worked fine with that TP-Link router! On BOTH 2.4 or 5 GHz (however I still had connection dropouts every few minutes - turned out the TP-Link router was probably a bit too sensitive in switching channels (default), so I chose a noise-free fixed channel and the connection became stable. Lesson learned: it is NOT always OS X' fault )

I did not bother to re-test my FritzBox router with the latest 10.8.4, but just to end: I ALSO had problems with Ethernet (go figure!) when transferring large (we're talking several Gigabytes of data) movie files onto my NAS (also connected via Ethernet).

Now what happened at that point - when I lost connection with Ethernet - that the network settings (where the assigned IP address is shown etc.) would say "Unknown state/error" (can't remember the exact message) - go figure! Trying to re-establish the connection with "Refresh DHCP" (?) did not help. Disconnecting the cable and connecting it again would go unnoticed by OS X at that point.

Now when waiting for another hours (while the iMac was busy converting my other DVDs) all of a sudden the connection would get re-established (without booting in between - booting always re-established the connection, until it would die several hours later again).

There is definitively "something fishy" somewhere in the network stack of Mountain Lion (since Lion?)....

Curipus how widespread the wifi issue is, there's an awful lot of minimization language used here, and idk about you but when a device randomly kicks off the net I dont really consider it a minor teething issue. (Generally my sentiment would be quite colorful with explacatives). If it only affects a few customers then the sentiment makes sense, a big issue for a couple customers may very well be minor in the grand scheme.

I had a similar WiFi cutting out issue on my Viao. The update to Windows 8 seems to have fixed it, but yes it was very annoying.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Do you use Apple access points (Airport Express/Extreme)?

Because, although that shouldn't matter, sometimes it seems to matter.

For what it's worth my not at all extensive experience with Apple Airports has not reflected any sort of quality or stability. If the only solution to buggy, unstable wireless on Apple devices is to use buggy, unstable Apple access points and somehow the individual crappiness of both ends cancel each other out; then count me out of that sales pitch.

I have to assume this is a troll. Having used and set up many Airports over the years, I've found them all to be solid with great range.

I've dealt with both the original airport and the Airport extreme over long periods of time with airport express range extenders. Connect more than 3 or 4 devices to the network and it craps out and needs to be power cycled from the main router. So in a busy house that's like 3 times a day. And then there was my sister's Airport/time machine which nothing in the house could connect to over wifi except for her iMac. I've never had any of these problems with Netgear, Linksys, D-Link, wireless products.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Do you use Apple access points (Airport Express/Extreme)?

Because, although that shouldn't matter, sometimes it seems to matter.

For what it's worth my not at all extensive experience with Apple Airports has not reflected any sort of quality or stability. If the only solution to buggy, unstable wireless on Apple devices is to use buggy, unstable Apple access points and somehow the individual crappiness of both ends cancel each other out; then count me out of that sales pitch.

I have to assume this is a troll. Having used and set up many Airports over the years, I've found them all to be solid with great range.

For what it's worth my not at all extensive experience with Apple Airports has not reflected any sort of quality or stability. If the only solution to buggy, unstable wireless on Apple devices is to use buggy, unstable Apple access points and somehow the individual crappiness of both ends cancel each other out; then count me out of that sales pitch.

I have to assume this is a troll. Having used and set up many Airports over the years, I've found them all to be solid with great range.

I have never had a problem with my Airport Extreme. I've used a lot of routers over the years. None of them worked as well, or were as easy to manage. But I've got the new Almond+ router on order to take advantage of 802.11ac on the new Mac Pro I'll be buying the end of the year. (Or new MacBook Pro possibly, we'll see.) Well that and the home automation features the Almond+ has that makes it about $500 worth of gear for $109. (Special white edition they released with the number of Kickstarter participants reaching some number of supporters.)

There are zero problems with WIFI for me with my Apple gear, other than dicey enterprise routers at work that can act really badly at times for no apparent reason, making logging onto our network with iOS devices to be an exercise in frustration. But then I often have problems with the hardware choices our IT department makes. (Such as the revelation yesterday that a $23,000 HP server doesn't support any kind of 10 gigabit NIC. Say what? Only HP could be so dumb.)

Sure there are sometimes bugs in Apple's software. But personally I've had way more problems getting Windows XP, Vista and 7 onto WIFI networks than any Mac or iOS device I've used over the years. Is that indicative of what happens for everyone? No way. And I don't make overly trollish claims (when I'm being serious) extrapolating my personal experience to some kind of universal truth.

I would love to use one of Apple routers, according to a couple of serious benchmark websites (toms hardware, anandtech) their stuff is 3x3 channels while the best home router I have is 2x2 and that was after researching quite a bit, most people have a 1x1 router unless hey spent some good money and researched. http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters ... less2.html

I would love to use one of Apple routers, according to a couple of serious benchmark websites (toms hardware, anandtech) their stuff is 3x3 channels while the best home router I have is 2x2 and that was after researching quite a bit, most people have a 1x1 router unless hey spent some good money and researched. http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters ... less2.html

There are plenty of non-Apple routers out there with 3x3:3 MIMO. You just have to buy them.

Why does Apple have so many Wi-Fi problems… For me, IPv6 is broken on WiFi, Wi-Fi sync doesn’t work for my iOS devices… and those are just the problems I have today. Every single WiFi problem I have, it’s with a damn Apple device. All my other devices are fine, including when my MBP is booted into Windows.

Do you use Apple access points (Airport Express/Extreme)?

Because, although that shouldn't matter, sometimes it seems to matter.

For what it's worth my not at all extensive experience with Apple Airports has not reflected any sort of quality or stability. If the only solution to buggy, unstable wireless on Apple devices is to use buggy, unstable Apple access points and somehow the individual crappiness of both ends cancel each other out; then count me out of that sales pitch.

Absolutely incorrect..., Apple's airport extreme is STABLE... better than any other wireless router I have tried... the only caveat is that I dont have experience with the Airport (not extreme).